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Since I launched the Italian Grape Name Pronunciation Project one month ago today, the most requested ampelonym has been Aglianico.
The grape name poses a challenge for non-Italophones because of the phoneme gli (in Aglianico).
In Italian, the sound that corresponds to gli is what is called a palatal lateral approximant (click the link for the Wiki page) and is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the following symbol:
ʎ
For the video, I have rendered the grape name as follows:
ah-L’YEE’AH-nee-koh
Italian speakers will note that Bruno — the nicest dude, one of my favorite growers of Aglianico, and a native of Campania where Aglianico is used to make some of the region’s and Italy’s most noble wines — pronounces gli with a softer inflection than his counterparts in the North of Italy, where a five- as opposed to seven-vowel system makes the i in gli more closed (more nasal).
Thanks for reading and speaking (and drinking) Italian grapes!
Do Bianchi 
bruno!! and his scarf! i love hearing his voice. thanks for posting this. DIGGING this entire series. such a great idea Jeremy.
Asimov is jumping on your bandwagon, see today’s NYT on lagrein.
@Whitney isn’t Bruno awesome? You’ve been to his estate, haven’t you? Thanks for the kind words. I’m psyched to see you next week in LA!
@TWG who do you think Eric’s “linguistically minded friend” is? ;)
What ho shout out by name? That just confirms he jumped on the bandwagon. What are the odds he’ll ref your project on the blog?
2B i knew i wasn’t crazy when i told you that it was pronounced ah-yah-nee-ko!! that’s how they say in the south, anyway :) and bruno kinda looks like jefferey rush
cute! love it, glad we are heading south of rome :)
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